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Beautiful.
What happened with the chain? Not enough lube or what, did you find a Honda dealer, did you do oil changes?

Sand it the worst on those road tires. I am definitely staying out of loose sand.
>I enjoyed riding the dalton highway as difficult as it was.
Is it all dirt and gravel?
 
Discussion starter · #42 ·
What happened with the chain? Not enough lube or what, did you find a Honda dealer, did you do oil changes?
A little bit to much offroading and I ran out of chain lube at one point so the chain ran dry for a little while. I just bought a 520 RK chain from a shop in napa valley CA and changed it in a friends garage to get me home.
Yes I changed the oil two times total on the trip. At first I didnt trust the 8000 mile change interval but on the second change I had put 7000 miles on the oil and it didnt look to bad.
I also had to clean the air filter because of how much dust was in the air riding through construction zones/dalton highway

Is it all dirt and gravel?
A few stretches of it are paved but most of it is dirt. I wouldnt exactly call the paved sections smooth highway either however lol. Sometimes the paved sections would be pothole covered gravel nightmares.
 
That was the most enjoyable pics and write-up I have ever read !!!! It makes me so wanting winter to be over so a guy can get going on the NEXT riding season !!! If you have more pics and stories, POST THEM PLEASE !!
My buddy and I did a trip last year on our CBR125r's and had a blast , did about 2600 kms in 7 days from Alberta to the middle of British Columbia. Cost us about a nickle/km !! Bikes did better than we expected !! We ride this bikes every where and love them. (Stories post @ www.CBR125r.com, under "canada", Then "alberta".) I have a few rides posted !!
My Honda dealer is pushing hard for me to buy a CBR250r (I really like it) and after reading stories like yours, it so tempting !!!!!!
Happy riding !!
It's not about speed..... it's about the "ride" !!!
 
Discussion starter · #46 ·
haha ^^ thanks for the compliment and yes I still have many un-posted photos I just thought the ones i put up were the best. I have done a few other road trips on different bikes. I'll have to post those up some day.:)
 
Being new to biking and being a new CBR owner, I found your log very inspiring. I don't think I'll be taking any super-long trips on my CBR, but I now know that I can take it for weekend trips without much concern. Thanks!
 
Owl, this is truly an epic trip. And the fact you rode a 250, that made this trip even more impressive. On those long stretches of roads thru the Yukon territory and Alaksa, what was your average speed and how did you handle the vibrations? How did the bike handle the wind?

I think I am roughly the same size as you (5'7, 140lbs). The bike is quite roomy but after an hour or 2, my legs and hands do get a little stiff. how do you manage that? I am planning on doing a North Cascade loop (400miles) or a Mt Rainier Loop in Washington State on the CBR250 in the spring/summer. My only concern with the bike is how it would handle climbing the mountain passes and comfort in a long ride (my longest trip so far is about 2 hrs covering 120 miles).
 
Discussion starter · #50 · (Edited)
On those long stretches of roads thru the Yukon territory and Alaksa, what was your average speed and how did you handle the vibrations? How did the bike handle the wind?
Vibrations were pretty bad and I would use my palm to hold the throttle on long straight stretches of road. I would say i probably averaged about 50mph in those areas. It was very scenic so I generally just took it easy. The wind was pretty rough but I stayed loose and let the wind blow me around instead of the bike.

[quoteThe bike is quite roomy but after an hour or 2, my legs and hands do get a little stiff. how do you manage that?][/quote]

My arms never had too many issues but my legs cramped up a little (i'm about 5'11) I would hang one butt cheek off the bike then let the opposite lower leg just hang rather then sit on the peg. I would do that switching off ever few minutes until my legs got better.
Another technique is to just stand up for a little bit and do a few quarter squats to get the blood flowing in my legs.
If things got really bad I would just stop and take a break after all nothing wrong with an excuse to take pictures :)

how it would handle climbing the mountain passes and comfort in a long ride
As far as steep uphill climbing goes the CBR doesnt have much to work with for sure. The only thing I could realistically pass were the semi's going 20mph. Don't expect to have any passing power but the bike can make it up some really steep mountains (you might have to ride in lower gears as well)
 
As far as steep uphill climbing goes the CBR doesnt have much to work with for sure. The only thing I could realistically pass were the semi's going 20mph. Don't expect to have any passing power but the bike can make it up some really steep mountains (you might have to ride in lower gears as well)
Riding my CBR125R fully laden with camping gear through the hilly sections along the trans-Canada highway north of Lake Superior, I was able to maintain a speed of around 80km/hr (50 mph) up the steeper sections in 4th gear. I weight about 220lbs with full gear. That seemed fast enough for me - I never seemed to be holding up traffic. Unfortunately, many of the hills along that route don't have passing lanes - so ironically, I found myself actually slowing down on the CBR125R as I approached traffic moving even slower than I was. From my experience on these hills in my 2009 Civic Si sedan, most vehicles slow down considerably up these long inclines - with traffic traveling between 90km/hr to 100km/hr (55-62 mph) at the fastest, compared to between 100km/hr and 115km/hr (62-72 mph) on the flat sections of the same highway.

Others on the CBR125R forum who have toured through the Rockies on their CBR125Rs have reported similar 80km/hr speeds up the long inclines in the mountains of Alberta and B.C. Was this your experience too Bullseye?

On the other hand, my CBR250R was able to maintain a speed of 115km/hr (72 mph) (in 5th) up one of the long hills around Lake Superior described above, fully loaded, on my touring/camping adventure from last year. This hill had a passing lane and I was overtaking a guy in a pickup truck who decided (for kicks?) to speed up and race me. I passed him. Along this route I've never seen any vehicle climb these hills faster than 70 mph. Even through the Great Smoky Mountains a few years ago (in my dearly departed 1992 Civic Si hatch) I was passing all sorts of vehicles like they were standing still up those hills with my cruise set at 120km/hr (75 mph).

The_Lucky_Owl - was this similar to your experience? It's hard to imagine the CBR250R really needing to go any faster up these hills. Am I missing something? Does one really need to go faster up through the mountains?

Mike
 
Discussion starter · #52 ·
The_Lucky_Owl - was this similar to your experience? It's hard to imagine the CBR250R really needing to go any faster up these hills. Am I missing something? Does one really need to go faster up through the mountains?
I don't see the need for anymore power no. I was just simply stating you shouldn't expect to see the same passing power you might have on a vfr800. I didn't have issue going up steep mountains but there was certainly a difference in acceleration.
I did hypothesize that since my bike was coming from sea level the first few high altitude passes I had to ride over were hard because the ECU had to learn the altitude so to speak.

Overall I had no complaints however. The bike did ascend beaver slide (12% grade hill on the dalton highway) with no hiccups.
 
Riding my CBR125R fully laden with camping gear through the hilly sections along the trans-Canada highway north of Lake Superior, I was able to maintain a speed of around 80km/hr (50 mph) up the steeper sections in 4th gear. I weight about 220lbs with full gear. That seemed fast enough for me - I never seemed to be holding up traffic. Unfortunately, many of the hills along that route don't have passing lanes - so ironically, I found myself actually slowing down on the CBR125R as I approached traffic moving even slower than I was. From my experience on these hills in my 2009 Civic Si sedan, most vehicles slow down considerably up these long inclines - with traffic traveling between 90km/hr to 100km/hr (55-62 mph) at the fastest, compared to between 100km/hr and 115km/hr (62-72 mph) on the flat sections of the same highway.

Others on the CBR125R forum who have toured through the Rockies on their CBR125Rs have reported similar 80km/hr speeds up the long inclines in the mountains of Alberta and B.C. Was this your experience too Bullseye?

On the other hand, my CBR250R was able to maintain a speed of 115km/hr (72 mph) (in 5th) up one of the long hills around Lake Superior described above, fully loaded, on my touring/camping adventure from last year. This hill had a passing lane and I was overtaking a guy in a pickup truck who decided (for kicks?) to speed up and race me. I passed him. Along this route I've never seen any vehicle climb these hills faster than 70 mph. Even through the Great Smoky Mountains a few years ago (in my dearly departed 1992 Civic Si hatch) I was passing all sorts of vehicles like they were standing still up those hills with my cruise set at 120km/hr (75 mph).

The_Lucky_Owl - was this similar to your experience? It's hard to imagine the CBR250R really needing to go any faster up these hills. Am I missing something? Does one really need to go faster up through the mountains?

Mike
My buddy and I weigh about the same. We were carring about 20-25 lbs of gear (clothes,etc.)and we weigh about 195lbs. (So about 215-225lbs) . Hills are a little bit of a challenge but a person does learn when to shift down so as to keep from dropping in speed when going up hills. It's important to keep RPM's up even when shifting cause if you wait to long to shift you lose lots of momentum and its hard to regain if it's a long hill.

BUT that being said, The CBR125r did better than I ever amagined !! Most roads in British Columbia (at least where we were) were only 90kms/hr..... or 100 kms/hr. So that is what these bikes go down the road at !! So no problems...actually we do better than most cars/trucks because we can corner and handle way better that they can. You still have to drive sane because you want to live another day but these bikes excell on twisty roads. The road from Creston to the Kootenay Ferry is my all time favorite road to ride. Beautiful scenery and a really twisty road............. ahhhh all this talk makes me want summer again !!!!!!!!!
Another thing is the "COOL" factor !!! You don't know how many times people were asking us about the bikes !!! Gas stations and anywhere else we stopped ....people were asking us all sorts of questions !! "You can travel on a 125cc ??" ....." "You rode all the way to here on that??"..Yeah... it was lots of fun. We even had 3 police officers talk and eye up the bikes on the ferry ride back home. They too had lots of questions. One officer laughed and said " This is crazy .. I just bought my young son a 150 cc dirt bike and its bigger than yours !!" He was very impressed with our bikes and everywhere we were going on them !!
The CBR125r was a ton of fun and I would travel again on it in a heart-beat !!! The only thing is ....is that a person has to watch on how many hours he rides !!! To many and you start to get "monkey butt" !!! But I would still take "monkey butt" to frostbite... ANYDAY !!!!!!

Keep up all the stories guys..... I enjoy them thoroughly and it gives me reason to plan more trips in 2012 !!!!
 
Owl, we all really want to thankyou for your incredible ride report. Quite an inspiration and lets everyone know the little 250CBR is capable and reliable. Amazing how well the tires did! Also very impressive is your average miles per day...and taking photos to boot!
Your ride over quite a range of paved and dirt begs the question: A dual sport 250 version with extended suspension travel and off road capable tires, wider handle bars, etc. The CBR250 fuel injected drive-train seems up to the task and more. And the light weight would be fantastic.......
 
the_lucky_owl - first of all, deep respect! Has always been my dream to fly to the US and do a long tour like that. A couple of drives down the California coast in a car got me thinking! But wow, doing it on the CBR250r!
Recently did a trip in East Java where the CBR250r performed really well. I found on steep mountain roads i really had no problems. Where it wasn't too twistie I was always between 5th and 6th gear, average 100-110kph which was fine for those roads. Whizzed by a big old HD roadking on flat twisties near the coast (which left me with a big adolescent grin on my face).
But the gravel was really a bitch in the road construction segments. I still have the stock tyres on. Somewhere in your thread you mentioned you changed out the back tyre for 150 which made for a smoother ride - how did it handle the gravel?
 
Another thing is the "COOL" factor !!! You don't know how many times people were asking us about the bikes !!! Gas stations and anywhere else we stopped ....people were asking us all sorts of questions !! "You can travel on a 125cc ??" ....." "You rode all the way to hear on that??"..Yeah... it was lots of fun. We even had 3 police officers talk and eye up the bikes on the ferry ride back home. They too had lots of questions. One officer laughed and said " This is crazy .. I just bought my young son a 150 cc dirt bike and its bigger than yours !!" He was very impressed with our bikes and everywhere we were going on them !!
Thanks Bullseye! I had the same experience with my touring/camping trip on my CBR125R. Of course - because the saddlebags covered the 125R emblem, many people assumed I was riding a CBR600R. :rolleyes: Ha..ha.. But you could tell who the avid riders were - they knew from the skinny tires, small size, colour scheme, engine, etc. that it was a CBR125R. Their expression of shock that I was riding across the province on a 125cc motorcycle was incredibly satisfying. Their reactions were liberally peppered with very entertaining streams of profanity.

Lucky Owl - thanks for keeping the small displacement bike touring mystique and spirit alive! :)



Mike
 
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